The Farmers Mart Jun-Jul 2018 - Issue 57 | Page 36

36 M H POSKITT LTD JUN/JUL 2018 • farmers-mart.co.uk ‘Supermarkets have done no harm to me. All they want is suppliers who give them great value, whose produce turns up on time and doesn’t let them down. Quality, service and reliability put you three parts of the way there. I won’t deny that securing the best price is a challenge but if you want to sell in volume in the UK you have to play with the big retailers. They need producers too. We work with retailers all the time. It certainly isn’t a ‘them and us’ attitude in fact it’s they who have taught me everything in business. They focus on the one person who counts – the customer.’ Poskitt’s Carrots is now a recognised brand and liveried lorries travel all over the country from Kellington, but it wasn’t always that way even though carrots have been a mainstay since Guy’s father’s time. ‘Sadly my dad died when I was 8 years old and my mum Sonia ran the farm business, she was the lynch pin in everything we’ve done here. The farm was a traditional arable enterprise for the area growing wheat, barley, potatoes and carrots across 500 acres. At that time my father grew around 35 acres of carrots for Lockwoods in the days when people bought tinned carrots. He also traded on the wholesale market. I left university early and have been back here for the past 35 years.’ 72701 - Park Farm Machinery Ltd - QUTR.pdf 1 19/06/2018 Total Crop Nutrition Suspension fertilisers Solution fertilisers Foliar fertilisers Call 01526 396 000 Visit www.omex.co.uk @ OMEXCompanies /OMEXCompanies Today’s acreage runs to thousands with cereals, potatoes, carrots, parsnips and sugar beet as major crops. Guy feels that any success he has had in growing the business has come from his mum’s running of the farm with a loyal farm manager when he was younger and the brashness of his own youth. ‘Customers ultimately determine your success but my father passing away when I was very young is sadly probably another factor. When you’re young you’re brave, you have lots of ideas and initiative and never see problems. You’re never going to grow any bad crops, things will never go wrong, but when you get older you worry more and are more restricted in ambitions. I wasn’t pushed into running the farm but I wanted to and even if I won the lottery I’d still buy another farm.’ Trading in commodities was Guy’s carrot to grow his business in the days prior to Internet age. ‘I found the vegetable job exciting. I was trading every day and cereal crop trading never gave the same buzz. I can still tell you the telephone numbers of most of my cus- tomers in Leeds, York, Bradford, Castleford and Hull. Carrot sales generated the income to grow the arable enterprise.’ ‘When the move to supermarkets started I was involved with a group of three main suppliers selling potatoes, cabbages and carrots to ASDA and subsequently, due to 15:55:51 PARK FARM MACHINERY www.parkfarmmachinery.com Specialising in retailing and maintaining the full range of Väderstad cultivation and drilling machinery as well as Caterpillar telehandlers and loading shovels. C M Väderstad main dealers and CAT dealers Y CM MY CY We sell (amongst others) rapid seed drill for corn, grass, oil seeds, maize, peas and beans, carrier rollers, Rexius twin pressures, rollers and the topdowns as well as the full range of telescopic handlers and shovels. CMY K Full range of New and used machinery always available Park Farm Machinery Ltd Lotherton Park Farm, Aberford, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS25 3ED T: 0113 281 2150 F: 0113 281 2653 E: [email protected]